UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND

A F R I C A N S T U D I E S I N S T I T U T E

African Studies Seminar Paperto be presented at Seminar in RW 319 at4.00 p.m. on Monday 25 April 1988

SOUTH AFRICAN FICTION AND A CASE HISTORY REVISED:AN ACCOUNT OF RESEARCH INTO RETELLINGS OF THE JOHN ROSSSTORY OF EARLY NATAL

by Stephen Gray

No. 230

SOUTH AFRICAN FICTION AND A CASE HISTORY REVISED:AN ACCOUNT OF RESEARCH INTO RETELLINGS OF THEJOHN ROSS STORY OF EARLY NATAL

Stephen Gray

I talk about the past mainly because I aminterested in the present.

Ngugi wa Thiong'oC11

The best sort o-f historical novel is the one whichi s real1y about the present and uses the past as asort o-f working model -for the present. Or, to putit another way, the best sort o-f historical novelsare novels in which the human issues are the same asthose we have now, and have always had to -face,

Thomas KeneallyC2J

In 1825-28, during the establishment o-f a British tradingoutpost and harbour facility at Port Natal, a boy apprentice -commonly known as John Ross — spent a considerable period at thecourt o-f Shaka, first king of the Zulus- He was the only whiteeye-witness to affairs in Zululand who was consistently there atthe formation of the Zulu imperium, and he came to act as atranslator and mediator, liaising between the Zulus and thecoastal settlement in some crucial dealings. In white accountsof his story he has been remembered exclusively as a minorcharacter among the white pioneers, for whom, when they wereailing in 1827, at the age of 14 he undertook a remarkablemarathon rescue-run from Port Natal to the Portuguese fort atDelagoa Bay in quest of "medicines and other necessaries." Thisfeat is commemorated in many existing monuments, and has beenthe subject of much historical writing and fiction, includingthe SABC-TV serial, John Ross: An African Adventure. Hisbiography is now also the subject of my own novel, John Ross:The True Story, published in 1987 by Penguin to coincide withthe release of the movie.

This paper traces the research necessarily undertaken inorder to reconstruct a biography of the period, and cast it inthe form of a historical novel for modern-day readers. Asummary of previ ous wri ters' reli ance on the i nterpretati vetexts of historians is given, showing how the John Ross storyhas been used as a popular episode in larger projects ultimatelydevised to justify the rightness of white control in early Natal- in its outpost, settlement, annexed and colonial, union andAfrikaner nationalist phases. The chief sources for theformation of this supportive historical mythology by two of theNatal pioneers - Nathaniel Isaacs' Travel5 and Adventures inEastern Africa (1836) and Henry Francis Fynn's Diary (firstpublished in 1969) — are examined, together with the veryextensive secondary literature derived from them, in order toshow how the biasing and manipulation of historical data andopinion has proceeded.

No writer to date has yet used the crucial third account -John Ross's own Loss o-f the Brig 'Mary' at Natal, with EarlvRecollections of that Settlement (1853), and other material byhim - which gives a radically different perspective on the sameevents, challenging almost al 1 o-f the major orthodoxies andstereotypes about black—white relationships in Natal at thetime, and -forci ng an extensi ve reval uati on of the very roots ofwhite hi story-maki ng. Basical1 y, the issues of siave—tradingand of the usurpation of territory which are general1y omittedfrom the existing histories, now with John Ross's testimanybecome the vital factors of re—interpretation, as they were themajor issues in his own life. This paper also shows, throughthe actual case history of this 'John Ross' figure, thei mplications a revi sed hi story and cultural reassessment canhave for contemporary South African readers at any given time.A further aim is to analyse the status of the categories of'fiction' and 'history' as they are currently reflected in themedia.

The story of John Ross is first recorded by two of the four mainpioneers, from whom virtually all the white history of earlyNatal is derived. In his Diary Fynn has everything and nothingto say about the outpost of British traders at Port Natal andits relationship with the Zulu kingdom from 1824 onwards. Hehas only these words to say about John Ross, the apprentice ofMr James Saunders King, partner of Lieutenant Francis Farewell,shipwrecked with his master in 1825 in the brig Mary at the Bay:

... the state of affairs Cby 1B27D in connection with theship in the course of Cre1 construction was so unsatisfactorythat King resolved to proceed to Delagoa Bay by land andobtain a passage to the Cape of Good Hope, where he wouldengage a vessel to go to Natal. This proposal, however, onthe situation improving, was modified, it being decided thatinstead of himself a youth, John Ross, of about 15 years ofage should make the journey for the purpose of obtainingmedicine of which they stood in much need. To enable thelad to do this it was necessary for Isaacs to appeal toShaka for an escort to protect Ross as well as provide himwith food on his 300—mile journey there and back. Shakasupplied the escort and after a few weeks Ross returnedsafely.C33

Although Fynn's account was not available to the generalpublic until quite recently, and so has had little chance ofbeing influential, he does establish clearly the Bay's positionof dependence and respect for King Shaka, and he makes theexpedition a routine affair. Phlegmatic and hard—nosed, Fynnwas never one to aggrandise any remarkable achievements.

But Fynn is already practising selective telling - thesituation which he does not explain is hardly a medicalemergency. Farewe11 and King, the joint leaders, had not spokento one another -for over a year and had set up rival outposts,one on the north, one on the south o-f the Bay, both by courtesyof independently negotiated and extensive land—grants -fromShaka. In exchange they were to rebui Id the Mary, not -forthemselves, but as Shaka's vessel, to afford him a means toreach Europe, King, who by then anyway had trade links with theCape Colony, had so delayed the -floating o-f the ship that toplacate Shaka he mounted this time-winning dash to Delagoa,ostensibly to acquire much—needed parts- Nor was Isaacs, Fynn'sally, in a position to plead with Shaka for a safe passage forthe boy; Isaacs had just had his alternative trading—post atTugela River Mouth burnt down, and been escorted back andconfined to King's land.

In April-May, 1827, Fynn was 24, Isaacs was a mere 19, andthe boy they call John Ross was actually 14 years old. All themembers of the Natal expedition were exceptionally young - oneof them, Thomas Hal stead, was made a Zulu induna or headman at15 and, contrary to the impressions given us by laterhistorians, so cordial were relationships with Shaka thatHalstead actually married one of the king's sisters - and thispersonal aliiance happi1y out1asted the political detente itcelebrated.

But the point of Fynn's record is not especially John Ross'sage. To us it is appealing to think of a lad that young - sucha junior member of the various parties that he had not beenmentioned before - undertaking such a journey, but to his owncontemporaries that sort of venture was par for the course.Fynn himself had once walked from Brahamstown to Cape Town insearch of a jab, and a year after John Ross one of Farewel1'sparty — John Cane the carpenter — walked the entire distancefrom Shaka's capital at Dukuza to Cape Town and back - not forthe whites, but for King Shaka- This was caused by the Zuluscoming to realise they would not achieve a peace with KingGeorge IV through the services of Farewell and King, but shouldapproach the rival power directly.

Our other prime informant, Isaacs, is the only member of theNatal expedition to have had his record published in acommercial form during his lifetime — or, at least, so we havebeen told. His bestsel1 ing Travels and Adventures in EasternAfrica. Descriptive of the Zoolus. their Manners. Customs, etc..etc.. with a Sketch of Natal - to give the work its full title -appeared in London in 1836, and has always been avai1able inreprints- The journal of his leader, Mr King — he was neverpromoted to lieutenant except by himself — is quoted extensivelyin Isaacs, but since become lost. IronicalLy, Isaacs, our majorinformant, is usually the one left out of accounts of earlyNatal, possibly because there is something too obviouslygo-getting in his approach and a Jewish frankness which is alltoo easily construed as bad taste.

Isaacs knew John Ross better than Fynn did, because Fynn, ifhe was aligned to anyone, -fell under Farewell - they had arrivedtogether in 1824. King, Isaacs and Ross, trying to bring themprovi si ons and rei n-f or cements, were shi p wrecked wi th them i n1825- Isaacs and John Ross arrived in Natal on the samecatastrophic wave, as it were, and 1 eft on the same ratherprosperous swell in 182B, once Shaka was dead and the Port Natalendeavour had to be abandoned as a result.

But the references to John Ross in Isaacs' work, althoughnumerous, are hard to piece together into any coherent story.One thing is c1 ear, however: Isaacs is by no means a reiiab1ewitness, as there was great enmity between him and John Ross.By 1828 Ross had so grown as Isaacs' rival, and had so forged analternative way of coming to terms with the Zulus, that detailsof his further career were simply omitted. Their ways didutter1y di verge: Isaacs became the siave—dealer he always meantto be, and Ross actually declared a private war on bootlegslavery as conducted by his former friend.

At all events, Isaacs has this account of John Ross'sjourney:

... it was thought advisable that we should endeavour toget Cto Delagoa Bay], as among other necessaries we weregreatly in want of medicines, - indispensable things inNatal; when John Ross, Lieutenant King's apprentice, a ladof about f i f teen years of age, acute, shrewd, and acti ve,was appointed to go the journey. No European had been knownto make the attempt, and succeed in reaching that place fromNatal. A man named Powell, one of Farewell's party, set offto reach Delagoa; but he was never heard of after hisdeparture. I seemed to have a great inclination toaccompany Ross, but Lieutenant King dissented. The boy too,by goi ng wi thout any other European, would not be 1i kely toexcite the king's suspicion that we wanted to obtain avessel for the purpose of leaving his country, as he had agreat desire to have white people with him. Shaka offeredus every assistance in sending off the lad, by at oncegiving him an escort to protect him and to furnish him withfood on the way...

It appears, after having left the residence of Shakawith his escort, he travelled moderately for eighteen days.From King Makasany Cof the TsongasD, by whom he was wellrecei ved, he obtai ned guides, and crossed the Ri ver Maputoin the native boats... The natives in the vicinity ofDelagoa are a filthy, inhospitable, treacherous, and viciousrace; but they treated him with civility and decency, notfrom courtesy, but fear...

The Portuguese were exceedingly kind to him during hisshort stay, but repeatedly said that they could not helpsuspecting him to be a spy sent by Shaka, as no Christianwould think of sending a boy like him that distance. John,however, said that he produced his dollars to show the

Governor that he had arrived -for the purpose of purchasingmedicines and other necessaries-. . The Governor told himthat he might purchase -from the stores what he required- Onhis proceeding to do so, he fell in with a Frenchman,commandi ng a vessel in the siave trade, then taki ng a cargo,who furnished him with a great many useful articles gratis,so that he returned having only expended two dollars, andyet had as many things, of various descriptions, as ten ofhis people could carry...

John Ross is doubtless the first European who everaccomplished a journey (by land) from Natal to Delagoa Bayand back. When 1 1ook at his youth and ref1ect on thecountry through which he had to pass, and that he had topenetrate through wild, inhospitable, and savage tracks, inwhich the natives had never been blessed with the sweets ofcivilization nor the light of reason, but were existing in amere state of animal nature 1ittle exceeding the instinct ofthe brute; when I look at this, and also further reflectthat the whole surface of the country was infested withevery species of wiId and ferocious animal, and everyvenomous creature, all hostile to man, I cannot but conceivethe journey of this lad as one that must be held asexceedingly bold, and wonderfully enterprising.C43

Isaacs' heightened rhetori c mixes economi c and moral themes,polarising the participants into obvious heroes and villains.Need John Ross have felt threatened if he had an entire Zuluimpi as an escort? Note who are the genteel ones in Isaacs'book — the Governor of Mozambique, which that year exported46,000 Shangaan siaves to the Empress of Braz i1... and theFrench captain who, as a matter of fact, was destitute, justhaving been becalmed without water and having dumped an entireliving cargo of 220 black people overboard. It is quite beyondIsaacs to mention the trade-war between Britain and Portugal;Farewel1 had already been cannoned out of Delagoa, and who werethe Portuguese to welcome a rival port at the other end ofZululand? Then, why didn't these Britishers stranded at PortNatal try Algoa Bay? - because by their own Colonial Capegovernment they had been declared illegal, a fact no onementions. The trip to Delagoa led by a young lad wantingmedicines - when no one was ill - was a vast scam. Somethingelse was at the bottom of it.

But Isaacs feels we must have conquering heroes whoillustrate the potential for opening up the interior toexploitation, appropriate racist denigration included, and fromhis account flow a dozen histories of early Natal in which theminor John Ross episode is magnified and valorised into servingthe various purposes of the writers' own times.

My -First example of this is Graham Mackeurtan in The Crad 1 e Dayso-f Natal - Fi rst publ i shed i n 1930, it is wri tten after most ofthe major changes of Natal's status have occurred and theBritish interest is secure. A second wave of settlement at PortNatal has estab1i shed i t as Durban, one of the busi est ports i nAfrica- The Boer interest has located at Pietermaritzburg bymid-century and been annexed to the colonial government- TheZulu monarchy has finally been dispossessed during the Zuluwars, and the Garden Colony has in 1910 joined the Union ofSouth Africa, which in turn is part of the Commonwealthnetwork- Mackeurtan is the first to call up echoes of all theadventure histories that intervene between the 1820s and 1920s,as if now to confirm the truth of their assumptions - from thesame Durban, after all, Allan Quatermain set off for KingSolomon's Mines in the 1880s.

... John Ross, a boy of fifteen, "acute, shrewd, andactive," was sent, with a few natives, to walk to DelagoaBay and back. This meant a journey of nearly six hundredmiles on foot- The mission was entirely successful, butJohn must have had many an anxious moment at night in theLebombo Mountains. He was a boy of courage and resource-..

At the bay itself he fell in with the captain of aFrench slaver, who furnished him with so much of his needswithout payment that John spent only two dollars. Perhaps

. this was the "infamous Dorval of Mauritius" who began to buyslaves in Delagoa Bay in 1825. The ravages of Shaka andtheir repercussions had reduced the neighbouring tribes tosuch a state of despair that numbers of them sold themselvesto escape starvation-..

It needed a brave heart and a wise head to camp1ete thejourney. As a physical effort alone it is worth recording;as a triumph of a mere child over the well-nigh invincibleit is immortal. John Ross may, for all one knows, have diedthe undistinguished master of a leaky ship, but he sleeps inthe Halls of Courage-C53

Mackeurtan's version is interesting for a number ofreasons. Apart from the direct (unacknowledged) quote fromIsaacs, he takes aver and extends the polarisation betweenblacks and whites. The information that John Ross's journey,now a "mission", was completed thanks to the hospitality of theZulus, Tsongas and Shangaans, and with their activecollaboration and assistance, is now turned around to 1ook as iftheir territories were actually the enemies', while the actualenemies of the British — the Portuguese and the French — arerecast as their allies and friends. The issue of slavery isdextrously manipulated, so that it now appears that the Zulusactively and voluntarily sold themselves into bondage. This isa fantasy addition which goes flatly in the face of historicaltruth - Shaka, in fact, was appalled at the depredations of theslave-traders and forbade his people to have dealings with them;a year before John Ross's visit he had razed the fort at Delagoa

Bay to the ground in an attempt to halt his rival, Shoshangane,using it to export white ivary, and hence the mi 1itary escort hegave John Ross. Subsequently Shaka waged a war againstShoshangane on this issue, with the 1 oss o-f some 30,000 peop 1 e,which must be accounted the first modern war -fought against thesystem o-f slavery. The Delagoa expedition being a "triumph of amere chiId over the well-nigh invincible" must also be seen in adifferent 1ight; Mackeurtan's account remains rather a triumphof wish-fulfilment over truth.

The key to his motives is in the 1owering of the status ofJohn Ross's escort into "a few natives" who are now viewed asmere assistants or servants, excluded from the glory of thewhite boy's achievement. Then Mackeurtan suppresses John Ross'sstory further by putting him to rest in the British "Halls ofCourage" - that John Ross did become the master-mariner of abrig of his awn, in about 1831, and sail it with a multiracialcrew against slave—traders would be entirely beyond Mackeurtanto imagine.

There f ol lows this example from Al lister Macmillan's DurbanPast and Present of 1936:

... when it was found necessary to despatch a messenger toDelagoa to produce certain much needed supplies, the personchosen for the enterprise was Farewell's young apprentice,John Ross, a lad of only 15 years of age, and it was thoughtpolitic that he should go entirely alone in order thatShaka's suspicions should not be aroused. The journey bythe boy, John Ross, is perhaps one of the most amazing andadventurous in the history of the African Continent-

Only six years later John Ross has been stripped of even his"few natives" so that the question of collaboration with theindigenous peoples is totally erased- Shaka, who was the actualsponsor of the expedition, is now turned into its enemy, and heis now "suspicious" and easily "aroused"; in short, he isthoroughly villainised.

By contrast John Ross is now elevated from the merely heroicinto the "amazing" category, and African history itself isc1ai med as great on1y because of the whi te sp i r i t ofenterprise. The 1 one nature of John Ross's journey isimportant, as it calls on a stock response in English folklore -Dick Whittington is one example, and Bunyan's Puritan Pi 1grim isanother. A quasi-religious myth becomes activated about thefigure of John Ross to validate a commercial venture which nowhas no regard for historical truth at all. Evidence of this isthat Macmillan does not even bother to identify Ross's employercorrectly (Farewell for King), let alone be able to conceivethat Farewell and King had at this time actually gone to warover their claims at Port Natal - the only pitched battle foughtat the Bay during the days of the first outpost was a civil one,conducted between Ross's white seniors. Further evidence of howahistorical we have become is that at this time John Ross'semployer was, in fact, neither King nor Farewell; it was Shaka,

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to whom he had been sold by King — believe it or not — as abody-servant.

Nevertheless, by 1955, we have E. A. Ritter's Shaka Zulu,the perennially bestselling biography which purports tosummarise the Zulu's own account o-f their history. Ritter givesa new twist to the John Ross story by dramatising his arrival atDukuza as i-F the event were wel 1 remembered and familiar:

Arriving at Shaka's capital on his march to Delagoa Bay,young Ross called on the king, who received him kindly.Great was Shaka's astonishment on hearing that this merechild contemplated so hazardous a journey, accompanied bytwo native servants, who even then had already acquired anabounding faith in the protective powers of a European, eventhough he was but a boy!

"Mamo!" exclaimed Shaka with surprise, "kodwaunesibindi!" (My mother! but he has a liver! - meaningcourage.) Filied with generous admiration Shaka providedRoss with an escort of two companies of soldiers and withten pairs of elephant tusks to trade with the Portuguese.After the king had given careful instructions to thecommanding officer as to the conduct of the expedition, hesaid to Ross: "By what means would you have prevailed overthe difficulties without my help?" To which Ross answered:"My head, my heart and my gun,"

After Ross left, Shaka said to his entourage: "Iftheir children are like that what must their men be like!Smal1 wonder that they brave the ocean waves, whi ch filleven our bravest warriors with fear. True, we only fearthat which we do not know, but these White people do noteven fear that!"

There is nothing to commemorate the great deed of thisbrave Scots boy. The trail he blazed is now closelyfollowed by the great north road from Durban via Swazilandto Delagoa Bay. Surely this highway could be aptly namedafter this heroic boy? Shaka rose nobly to the occasion andset an inspiring example to the fellow countrymen of JohnRoss. The Zulus salute John Ross as I—Qawu — The Hero.C7D

Here the striking feature of the passage, apart from thebluff and bravado of the scene—painting, is the way Ritterco-opts even Shaka himself through the use of supposedlyauthentic dialogue into admitting young John Ross'ssuperiority. The Zulu heroic virtue of bravely overcoming fearof the unknown is poignantly evoked, and the admiration andgenerosity of one warrior recognising another rings movinglytrue. At least in Ritter the Zulu factor is reinstated, butonly that i t may be outmanoeuvred by the whi te man wi th hishighway. Of course the highway to the north had long beenopened by the Zulus themselves, and if it was to be named afteranyone it should be Shaka. Nor does the modern highway goanywhere near the route they followed; it has to circle all ofSwaziland, while they avoided it by following the coast. But

Ritter does not suggest that this matters; he merely uses Shakato chide John Ross's commercial 1y—minded countrymen for theirlack o-f an abi 1 i ty to acknowledge heroism. Ritter's ownbackground is different -from Mackeurtan 's and Macmi Han's - apost-World War II sentiment willing to allow the Zulu role inhi story i s evi dent once it is no 1onger a threat, and can returnin the form of the throbbing popular romance of spectacle andslaughter. Also, Ritter is the first to arm John Ross with agun, which in Natal mythology is the only technologicaladvantage the one militaristic society had over the other.

But Ritter also interprets the scene psychologically, makingidenti f i cati on between Shaka and the boy so suggesti ve.Although he could not know it, and it must be stressed that thescene could not have taken place in any way li ke the onedepicted here, Ritter is at least correct in one respect. Therewas a special bond between the omnipotent ruler and the littlewhite underdog. Over the previous two years Shaka had adoptedhim as his own child. Shaka really loved John Ross for hisagility in dancing the Scottish hornpipe in his sailor—suit andfor how, chameleon—like, he had become a rather curiouslyadaptable white Zulu. Need1 ess to say, the idea that Zuluhistory recalls this incident which could not have occurred is afabrication. This stream of evaluative historians thusculminates in an illogicality: what is announced as 'history'has, in fact, become 'fiction.' This is an interesting enough1i terary observation, but i n the society at 1arge the 'f i ction'has been read all too literally.

However, following Ritter's recommendation many monuments haveindeed been raised to celebrate the valour of this fictionalJohn Ross as if the story were factual. Here is the list:

In 1956 a paddling pool on Durban's esplanade is named afterJohn Ross.£83

On 21 March that year the Natal Mercury gives advancepublicity to Mrs D. Strutt, curator of the Old House Museum, whohas devi sed a "Puppet PI ay Based on the Boy Hero", dramat i si nghis journey; the same Mrs Strutt 1ater writes a f i ne pamph1et onThe Early Settlers of Natal. which sorts out much of themisinformation.

In 1958 the MOTH's Ubejane Shellhole of Mtubatuba sign-poststheir section of the new national road John Ross Highway — andthis is also the main access route into Eshowe.

In 1959 the new flyover bridge over the Tugela River isnamed after him.

In Durban's old fort a tablet (in English only), mounted instones in the centre of a subtropical, regimental garden,officially recognises Ross's meaning to history:

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THIS TABLET COMMEMORATESJOHN ROSS

(LIEUT, J.S. KING'S APPRENTICE)A LAD OF 15 YEARS OF AGE, WHO IN 1827, BRAVING THEPERILS OF AN UNEXPLORED LAND INHABITED BY ANUNKNOWN PEOPLE, AND ABOUNDING IN WILD ANIMALS,WALKED WITH GREAT COURAGE FROM PORT NATAL TODELAGOA BAY AND BACK (A DISTANCE OF 600 MILES)IN ORDER TO OBTAIN SORELY NEEDED MEDICINES ANDOTHER NECESSARIES FOR THE HANDFUL OF PIONEERS

AT THE BAY OF NATAL.C93

Comment -from the Natal Mercury; "What did his parents saywhen they -found out?"

One of the Durban harbour tugs is accordingly named the JohnRoss.

Then on Durban's Victoria Embankment — the English—speakersalways like their monuments practical - an immense, curved blockof sub-economic flats goes up to house waifs, strays, studentsand destitutes: John Ross House.

At its entrance is a beautiful tiled mural depicting the ladsloping off up the beach, with bare feet and a cane. He isdressed in a brown jerkin to match his hair, and appears to bewearing blue jeans. Observed by a few Zulus in fancy dress, hetravels alone.

Before the mural is another representation of him - a fine,more than life-size bronze statue of him in a torn shirt withkneebreeches. Here his hair is curled like a young Caesar's,his nose aquiline, chin firm, eyes far-seeing.C103 In one handhe grabs three hunting-spears some nine feet long - this wouldseem the ultimate appropriation of Zulu might, for this littleRoman conqueror now carries their weapons against them. He isin mid—stride, raised on a podium so that passers—by can onlylook up to him.

When Richards Bay opens a school it is named John RossCollege, and has a similar statue on display.

Meanwhile a tertiary category of the literature on John Rossdevelops with the first book devoted to him - in 1958 RexGutridge's novel for children called Thunder over Africaappears.C113 Now John Ross, the British Navy's powder-monkey,sets off barefoot, passes Captain Dorval's ship moored offapproximately La Lucia, etc. By repetition the story becomesentrenched and seems to be firmly validated.

The white Natalians appear to have concocted a hero who canrival any thrown up by Afrikaners, too; indeed, by 1972 K.Schroeder affirms that this is at 1ast so by inc1uding JohnRoss's story in Bravery i n South Africa: Stori es from ourHeroic Fast.C123 where he appears as one Englishman among adozen Afrikaners and no blacks. Schroeder depicts John Ross asa guest of a kraal where he is much welcomed, but spends moretime on his leavetaking than his arrival, as if to express greatdisapproval that he should have been there at al1.

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In 1974, to commemorate the 150th anniversary o-f what is nowcalled the -first settlement o-f Natal, the Natal Society publishin Natal ia the biographies o-f those -first pioneers (none o-f whomsettled). It is interesting to see how various characters arerated and ranked in the pantheon: Francis Farewell, Henry Fynn,James Saunders King and Nathanial Isaacs are the leading four,with John Cane, Henry Ogle, Thomas Halstead and John Ross assupporting cast — a dozen or more other pioneers are not givenentries, simply because there is -fragmentary evidence about themin the original records- This is understandable, but it doesillustrate how the naval hierarchies of Regency days persist inour supposed1y more democrati c wor1d. Also, fai1ed pioneers Aregiven no space at all - the original ventures to Port Natalinvolved more individuals who returned to the Cape or perishedthan those who persisted «•

The John Ross biography cites only Fynn, Isaacs and theircannibaliser, Mackeurtan, although by then far more informationon him is available, almost all of which serves to expand andeven contradict the official mythology- R. E. Gordon's entry,however, is the first to mention that the expedition to DelagoaBay was met by King at Tugela River Mouth "where he had campedduring a surveying trip."C13] This is in fact the point fromwhich King and Isaacs had been driven back, their trading—postin ruins. King was not there making any peaceful survey for hischart of the coast, but intercepted the convoy of porters beforethey could reach King Shaka to divert them to the Bay. Gordoncontinues, saying "Ross got back to the Port after an absence ofthree weeks" - three years would be more accurate, for John Rosshad lived most of his time in Natal with the Zulus, not thewhites. Gordon cites the series of articles Ross subsequentlywrote to explain his moves - this is the Loss of the Bria 'Mary'sequence - but obviously did not study them, preferring forunfathomable reasons to stick with the old version of the story.

In 197? the American scholar and editor of Africana texts,Edward C. Tabler, published his biographical reference work,Pioneers of Natal and South-east Africa. The entry on John Rossrepeats al1 the information we have been given as swornorthodoxy, adding the f1 ourish for which there is no source -that on King's death on 10 September, 182B, John Ross wasdespatched to Shaka with the news. This is impossible, becausefour days later all the people at the Bay knew Shaka himself wasdead and that their fates had utterly turned. So dependent onShaka had they become that with his demise they evacuated theirclaims and the outposts fel 1 into ruins. It is all very wellfor popular mythology to run awry, but when one findsspeculation dressed up as irrefragable evidence in academicreference works we are into an area of voluntary deceit whichcan surely not be tolerated f or much 1 anger.

At the time of writing a TV serial of the adventures of JohnRoss in Zululand is nearing completion, and I have beenprivileged to observe much of the three—year process of mountingsuch a multimi11 ion rand production. I have seen the exhaustiveamounts of money and time, skill and care, that go into

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preparing an epic movie such as John Ross: An Afr ican Adventure•and so have no wish to be -f 1 ippant or facetious about it- Ihave visi ted 1ocations during filming, have even contributedtitbits of research material to their immense resources ofbackground information. The aim of their final script by JohnCundill is a forthright one - to make an enthrallingaction-adventure which wil1 surely week by week capture thehearts and mi nds of i ts multi tudes of vi ewers. Gi ven theconservative nature of big-budget movie-making in general andits necessary reliance on tried and true formulae, John Ross: AnAfrican ftdventure will be disturbing at the danger andderring-do level, but perhaps bland and placatory at other1evels whi ch we may consi der more important, specifical1y asregards the depiction of race relations and home truths aboutthe colonising process. Inevitably the movie promotes the viewthat young pioneers threw up this nation, producing the type ofwor1d we must maintain. The movi e's story may have little to dowith any truth empirically arrived at; the SABC—TV team arecertainly not the first, with such an overwhelming back-up ofprecedents, to have every reason in the world to tell the oldstory in the old way.

But in this account we have reached a crisis point. Read ashistory, John Ross: An African Adventure tells us everything weneed to know, actual1y not about the past, but about thepresent. If viewed as literature, it becomes a record ofpresent-day beliefs about life in which the historical spectacleis used merely as what Lukacs calls picturesque costume—drama.This constitutes one text where it would be foolish to attemptto find any other truths than those which are platitudinously infavour of the apartheid status quo.

The only way to break through the surface of this situationis to establish another text, one which can play intertextual1yagai nst the movi e's text - and that is why I have wri tten as ananswer to it the somewhat boldly named John Ross: The TrueStory. This is a novel which, while retelling substantially thesame story as the film, resituates it in an altered contextwhere the basic assumptions of what constitutes 'history','truth' and 'fiction' are changed. My novel is a history, andproclaims itself as such, citing its sources and references(which a film has not time to do). But it is also a novel whichdraws attenti on to i ts f i cti onali ty i n a way whi ch few f i1mshave ever managed to do: films are all too often read directlyin terms of social realism, the authenticity of the image, theauthority of the camera's poi nt of view, and so on. But mynovel deconstructs itself, showi ng how the hi story was initiallyconstructed, and pointing out that metafictional stories aboutstori es are as i nteresti ng as the stories themselves. Usi ngth i s strategy I hope to estab1i sh a comparati ve debate whi chwi11 indeed bring the categories of history, truth and fictioninto a controversial area, forcing the consumers of the twoworks into 1 earning how to assess data relatively, and to sortout new meanings from them.

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One of the curious observations that has to be made about thisprocess o-f historical revaluation is that I am not the f irst tosee cracks in the John Ross story as it has been elaborated andhanded down by pro-fessional historians and our stateinstitutions.

The warnings about how wrong the myth-makers could go shouldhave been picked up long ago. For example, the -first blackAfrican novel about the early Zulu days, written in Sotho,Thomas Mofolo's Chaka. -first published in English in 1931,presents an utterly different portrait of the man who, afteral1, control led John Ross's life.C143 Shaka was clearly nolurid, fantasy tyrant so beloved of the many writers whofollowed Fynn and Isaacs; in the Zulu oral tradition he was, andremains, perhaps the most respected recipient of praises. R. R.R. Dh1omo, in his Zulu novel of 1937, UShaka. presents yetanother portrait, drawn more reliably from the elaboraste oralheritage of the people who should know, after all - the Zulusthemselves. His brother, the journalist, H. I.E. Dhlomo,ceaselessly warned us to beware of experts, too - any 'expert'on Zulu affairs, he remarked, could be sure to have a hiddenmotive. But sti11 even these warnings may be dismissed —obviously black historians and writers may make of history whatthey wish as well; it is all a matter of point of view. If youassume 'black' and 'white' are different, of course their pointsof view are different. We have been riding on 1iterarysleights—of-hand like these for centuries. The use of blackoral sources remains problematic for white historians; fewreferences are ever made, for example, to the James StuartArchive of Recorded Oral Evidence Relating to the History of theZulu and Neighbouring Peoples, although much of this ispublished in translated and edited form-

But in 1957 the Natal Mercury carried a piece called"Identity of Young Natal Pioneer Hero Solved"!! 153 - and therebegan the first sign of a questioning on the white side ofhistory, whi ch has si nee become an alternati ve di recti on ofrevaluation. The piece carries a picture of the commemorativetablet quoted above, and tells the story of a very conscientiousresearcher. Her name is Elizabeth Gooderham, a Britishjournalist working in Durban at the time. As anyone before hercaul d so easi1y have done, she was having troub1e wi th the name'John Ross' - indeed, both Fynn's and Isaacs' records arereplete with Johns (John Cane, John the Hottentot, three Johnswho are the jolly jack tars of the Mary). and often they are notcalled John at all, but Jack. When Isaacs goes on a foragingtrip inland for grain on 27 August, 1826, and takes John Cane,Rachel the Hottentot and 'John Ross' wi th him, th i s John comesback a few days later named 'Jack.' So the first name John isin the line of a generic nickname. And I have since found outthis is not our John Ross at all, because at that date he was atShaka's court, where incidentally he was commonly named Jackabo.

But as Sooderham discovered, his real name was nothing 1i keJohn or Jack; he was called Charles!

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Nor was his surname Ross. There was any number of Rossesabout in South A-frica at the time: the government printer atthe Cape o-f Good Hope who produced The African Court Calendarand Directory was Beo. Ross; the Dictionary of South AfricanBiography lists a near-contemporary Glaswegian John Ross on theBorder, and there was Brown1ee J. Ross, the mi ssionary, there,too. 'Ross', then, could also be a nickname for a Scotsmanand/or redhead, which it was in this case: our lad was calledRoss for having the only carroty tresses in the whole ofSouth-East Africa, and a braid Scots accent to go with it- Hisreal surname, it turns out, was Maclean. Middle name: Rawden.

So our story is about 'John Ross' only in terms offabricated myth; benind the myth is a man cal1ed Char1es RawdenMaclean. All those monuments a^re up to the wrong person.

Maclean was born on 22 November, 1812 - Gooderham learnedfrom the Registrar of Shipping and Seamen, Cardiff - and servedin eight ships, beginning with the Mary in 1825. Afterpioneering in Natal he set out to sea again, trading betweenLondon, the Southern States and the West Indies, gaining hismaster's ticket in 1833—34. This record continues to 1861, andit was not then known what happened to Captain Maclean on hisretirement.

Armed with the correct name, key dates and the markers of abiography, Gooderham also found that Nathaniel Isaacs was notthe only Natal pioneer to go into print with his memoirs:Captain Maclean himself did, too. His 20,000-word account,written mostly as a corrective to the new missionary historiesof early Natal, The Loss of the Brig 'Marv' at Natal. with EarlyRecollections of that Settlement, was published in serial formin the Nautical Magazine, London, between January, 1853, andMarch, 1855. This Gooderham generously deposited in the Ki11ieCampbell Africana Library for the use of all futureresearchers. Thus we have a vital alternative source for thesame events Fynn and Isaacs recorded — and as far as the 'JohnRoss' story is concerned, Captain Maclean's record can be takenas coming from the horse's mouth.

Because Gooderham's project concerned Farewell, she madelittle use of her John Ross discoveries. Rather, she openedanother can of worms in an excellent historical novel calledFebana: The True Story of Francis George Farewel1. Explorer•Pioneer and Founder of Natal. which she published under hermaiden name in 1962.C16] Like many works that retell historytoo originally, Febana was ignored; is now forgotten. My ownwork, a full twenty—five years later, is the first to useCaptain Maclean's account of himself, religiously and in full.I hope that the time is finally ripe for what he, has to tell usof black-white relationships in early Natal history.

In 1966, the naval scholar, Donald R. Morris, produced hismonumental The Washing of the Spears, a history of the rise andfall of the Zulu nation very much on the revaluative side. Hisframework implicates not only the history of Natal settlerdombut that of all Southern Africa. Although he knew Febana. he

15

mi ssed The Loss of the Brig 'Mary' . and so makes several -factualmistakes about John Ross (that he travelled alone, spoke noZulu, etc- ) . But what Morris did discover was a letter -fromCaptain Maclean written to The Times in 1873, by which date hebelieved he was the last survivor of the original Natal whiteparties. This is also held in the Killie Campbell collection.It is an intensely passionate document, telling his truth, noneof wh i ch Morr i s used.

More recently Morris has continued to dilate upon Shaka'scharacter, in the most impeccable and logical style, proving hima homosexual and chi Id—murderer, C173 raising the old unfortunate1 ibels once more, John Ross did not -find Shaka so-.. in fact,he goes into quite some detail about Shaka's wives and children,and was certainly never himself abused. Morris has obviouslynot kept abreast of histori cal research; the f i ndings of theNguni Workshop at Rhodes University in 1979C18H alone make hisassumptions about Zulu organisation during the difaqane periodappear the wishful guesswork they actually are.

On the revaluative side then came Brian Roberts in 1974 withThe Zulu Kings, the first work to pursue the Fynn-Isaacsalliance and analyse their motives for writing of Shakan timesin their letters to the press in cahoots and in such ablackening way. A century and a half after Shaka's death,Roberts still finds the issues unsatisfactorily explained orresolved. But of course he is right: both were deeply enmeshedin a world of seething intrigue at the Bay. Both fought fortheir huge stakes of land in a country the size of England.During the brief period of the first outpost, they rose to takeover the whole business venture from their own leaders, Farewel1and King respectively. They were heavily involved financially.Their potential harvest was staggering: of the three mi 11 ionelephants in Zululand, by 1828 they had bagged only a third ofthem. With Shaka gone, to protect their claims in Zululand theyneeded to arrange for British military intervention in Natal;Roberts quotes the infamous private letter written by Isaacs toFynn, in which he tries to sort out a press campaign to assertthe validity of their claims, and make it seem moral 1yimperative that the Zulus be utterly subjugated: "Make them outas blood-thirsty as you can," Isaacs recommended.C19D In acontext as warped as this, of course their accounts of John Rossco-opt him to their cause. What it boils down to is this: ifeven a Bri ti sh cabin—bay cauld outsmart the Zulus, move i nbecause i t can only be a pushover. Roberts is obvi ouslycorrect. We have not yet taken the f atal bi as out of thei rpropaganda.

In his article called "The Maligned Monarchs" and insubsequent highly tendentious pieces, Louis du Buisson takes upthe cause of correction with a wonderously sharp anger.C2ODLabelling Fynn and Isaacs ferocious character assassinators, hecharges them with unholy ingratitude. Shaka had made themchieftains and clan-leaders out of sheer hospitality. All theprofits and pieasures of Zululand were theirs: no Europeancapital investment had ever multiplied faster, nor had the

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little gods bred quicker. (When their company departed in 1828they left behind several dozen children.) There is a mild wordto describe their joint policy: opportunism. Du Buisson hasmany other more acute ones.

Chief Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a descendant o-f theZulu dynasty - one of the longest-lasting in power in the world- has other descriptions. At the Shaka Day mass rally inSeptember, 1986, according to a report in the Star. he calledfor correction of the "grossly distorted image of King Shaka asa bestial, insane tyrant."C211 He branded Fynn and Isaacs as"depraved liars... who scattered sperm around kwaZulu as othermen scattered footsteps." They were "greedy nobodies who wormedtheir way into Shaka's favours, were given vast tracts of 1 andand hordes of cattle, and then rewarded the king's generosity bypublishing lying indictments against him and the Zulus." Buthow was it passible for a mad tyrant, he asked, to have achievedwhat Shaka had in his brief 12-year reign? Shaka had created avast empire with offshoots as far away as Zimbabwe andMozambi que, and had 1 eft Zulus with a deep sense of morality anda commitment to high ideals which had remained intact despitethe centuries of brutalising racist suppression.

This speech was made near Shaka's burial site at Stanger,where most of the action of my novel is set. I have stoodthere, too, but in an imagined past, when Shaka's shield-shapedcity of Dukuza administered one of the most extensive humanorgani sati ons Af rica had known. Now there are the usual saddorp facilities - the UBS, second-hand cars, advertisements forhair-straighteners, He-Man Lotion, an Indian school, and theswitchback tar roads which lead to gravel and the blacklocation. Red flame trees, mimosa - and rolling sugarcane.There is hardly a thorn-tree left of all that glory, not even ahandful of crane or lourie feathers. The bloody—minded whiteshave built right over it, to keep it buried.

But I have heard Chief Buthelezi's mother, the late PrincessMagogo, sing the beautiful praises of King Shaka. How can hersweet version ever connect with our vile one?

And now I have found the voice of John Ross, that wasaccounted dead. That has not yet lived.

Enter Captain Maclean.He is the crucial evidence, which no one has yet taken the

trouble to read. He was a slight, short child then, so he sawall of this mighty history from below. He made of it somethingso different from what we have been told on either side that itopens up a third, new way of seeing.

To begin with, Charles Maclean recorded so many stories that noone has heard before. One is the legend of Mr Hutton, the mateof the Mary, and his love for the refugee woman, Dommana. Fynnand Isaacs censored this kind of story out, but when Hutton diedof the fever in 1828, we learn, so faithful to his memory wasDommana that she died of grieving for him. It is one of the

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great love stories of our heritage- By using the tactic that wehave been cheated a-f our rightful history, perhaps I can breakthe logjam o-f received truth.

John Ross ran to Delagoa Bay, that is true, even though hedid not think o-f it as much o-f a -feat- But what Fynn and Isaacsdo not tell us is who he ran -for — he ran -for Shaka, not -for thewhites. He was one o-f a Zulu trading party numbering 31people. By rendering the mythically heroic as mundane androutine, perhaps I can bring history down to a human level.

Like most o-f that -first batch o-f pioneers, he was inZululand -for four years. He spent three of them, not at PortNatal, but at Dukuza with King Shaka. He actually had nooption: he was sold to Shaka by his owner, Mr King (in partexchange for Durban Bluff!). By reassigning meaning to familiarlandmarks, perhaps I can alter the entrenched markers of thepast.

By the end of their stay, most of these pioneers were dead -or had become the most hopeful, sunbeaten derelicts in all theworld. Dressed in feathers and skins and bandoliers, theyalways hoped far such affluence. They became a bizarre tribe oftheir own, substantially integrated with the Zulu people,adopting their 'worst' customs, 1ike polygamy, and none of their'best'; suggesting that this was a common frontier experiencedemystifies its glamour.

But John Ross is the only one of them who became a Zulu.When he returned to the Bay he could hardly speak a word ofEnglish, and none of his mother-tongue — which, incidentally,was Gaelic. To white historians that seems a circumstance sotraitorous that no one has dared to utter it before, but thetruth is he chose the Zulus above the British, and suchcrossings over were common. He had good reason: King Shakatreated him better. Drawing him out of the Halls of Fame andreinserting him in the world of fact is a polemical act.

He found the Zulu world preferable to his own: he must havedone, for when Shaka's reign col1apsed about him and the whitescould poise themselves to take over, this John Ross devoted therest of his life to fighting for black liberty. That sort oftwist has definitely been expunged from our histories, butCaptain Maclean became a most eloquent spokesman for theemancipation of blacks all over the world. This is recorded inthe Anti-Slavery Reporter. To achieve his goal he mannedhis Caribbean ship with freed black slaves, and blasted anyonewho threatened their freedom out of the water. One of thedebacles he caused in the Southern States contributed to theoutbreak of the modern world's second war against slavery, theAmerican Civil War. So we may realise he had learned to havenothing but contempt for King, Isaacs and Co., whose real goalwas to keep blacks out of the human fami 1y.

A further tactic is to reintroduce his own voice, which inthe interests of white solidarity has been suppressed. Here isa sample of his passionate way of stating his convictions, froman address to the Zulu people made in 1855, once thecolonisation of the Zulus by the British was a foregone

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People o-f Zoolu, I 1 eave this record of you in the day ofyour greatness as a nation; none o-f you may ever see thegreatness of mine, but its influence is already surroundingyou, and I write this in testimony of my gratitude for themany -favours I received at your hands. It is too much forme to ex pect that a revoluti on in your habi ts, so great andso opposite to all you have been accustomed, can be effectedin your generation, without doing violence to yourhappiness- The white man's notions and yours differ widelyon this point, and I am concerned for you in the struggle.But I look forward with hope that your successors will enjoythe advantages and benefits which you r--"inot appreciate.

I am a decided advocate for your liberty, in commonwith the whole African race's, and rejoice that my countryhas been the first to acknowledge that right, and has setthe example of your freedom to the rest of the world. Otheradvantages will follow: the Genius of universal emancipationhas set her foot in every land, before which slavery must befor ever trodden down; the work is begun, and thepseudo-Christianity that reduces you to the condition of thebrute creation is fast losing ground. Greater and moretalented minds wi11 rise to vindicate your rights as membersof the human family. I have had occasion and done so undergreat di sadvantages and i n the very strongholds of siavery,and I trust di scharged my duty wi th -f idel i ty commensuratewith its importance.C223

The reasons why history is written are as interesting as thehi story i tself. I am convi need thi s story of 'John Ross' theliberty-man - the freedom-fighter - will not go away, now. Itis no coincidence that the race memory throws up the urge torediscover the past when the present is in ruins. Out of thispast, which we eliminated - did not even know we had - comes theauthority to sort out a future.

Above al1, the writer's task is to persuade his readershipof the living reality of his material. For me this began toclear in smal 1 detaiIs. When I heard that, as John Rosspresented himself as a gift at Shaka's court, the monarch (starknaked - no matter what Morris says in his letter) asked tofondle the boy's voluminous red hai r, and came out wi th theopinion that it resembled a steer's tail, I was hooked.

Another detail: traipsing on the road back and forth toDukuza, the kid had so much foot—trouble his Zulu guides carriedhim piggyback in trading blankets - so much for the savagehordes, who lolloped along with him so tenderly.

A further detail: John Ross suffered terribly from sunburn,so the Zulus plastered him in mud all the time. He lived 1 ikethat for the best years of his 1 ife — a pampered bloody savage.

When John Ross the apprentice was sold to King Shaka, forwhat was to become one of the richest pieces of real estate inthe world, to use his own words: "Shaka kept me with him, first

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as a sort o-f rare pet animal , on whom he bestowed a large amountof ki ndness, and I must add a 1 arge share o-f i ndulgence, andlatterly as a confidential companion... "C23D For thoseconfidences which no other white shared we have only to turn tohis account. Experienced at the height of romanticism, when'freedom' was an emerging concept, and coincidentally thehistorical novel in English was being born, it can only be asubversive document in our unfree, antiromantic society.

With that in hand the revision of South African historicalwriting can begin. The historical novel, which since the daysof Scott has become the genre in which a new national spirit canbe formulated, seems an appropriate place to start with such acampaign.

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NOTES

This paper was delivered at a conference on Southern A-frica heldat the University of Montpellier, 22-24 May, 1987.

1. Ngugi wa Thiong'o, quoted as the epigraph to LuliCallinicos, Working Li-fe (1886-1940), Vol. 2 ofA People's History o-f South Africa (Johannesburg:Ravan, 1987), p. 7.

2. Laurie Hergenhan, "Interview with Thomas Keneally,"Australian Literary Studies. Brisbane, Vol. 12,No. 4 (October, 1986), p. 453.

3. The Pi ary of Henry Franci s Fynn. compi led -from originalsources and edited by James Stuart and D. McK. Malcolm(Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter, 1969), p. 131.

4. Nathaniel Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in EasternAfrica (Natal). edited by Louis Herman and Percival R.Kirby (Cape Town: Struik, 1970), pp. 102-3.

5. Graham Mackeurtan, The Cradle Days of Natal (1497-1854)(London: Longman, Green, 1930), p. 139.

6. Alii ster Macmi11 an, Durban Past and Present: Historical.Descriptive, Commercial. Industrial (Durban: Brown andDavis, 1936), p, 15.

7. E. A. Ritter, Shaka Zulu (London: Longman, Green, 1955),pp. 153-5.

8. The following items of information are from the John Rosscuttings collection, Killie Campbell Africana Library(KC), University of Natal, Durban. See "John Ross,"Natal Witness. Durban (16 October, 1956).

9. See "Forgotten Boy Hero Now Remembered," Natal Witness•Durban (22 January, 1954).

10. The statue is by Mary Stainbank.11. Rex Gutridge, Thunder over Africa (London and New York:

Frederick Warne, 1958).12. K. Schroeder, Bravery in South Africa (Cape Towns Nasou,

1972).13. See R. E. Gordon, "John Ross," Natalia. Pietermaritzburg,

No. 4 (December, 1974), p. 26.14. The subliterature on Shaka in Zulu and many other

1anguages is an immense field, stretching from Mofolo'ssources to the present. See, for example, MbongeniMalaba, "The Legacy of Thomas Mofolo's Chaka," English inAfrica, Grahamstown, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 61-71, whichcites most of the key works, culminating in Wole Soyinka'sQgun Abibiman (1976). For the social and economicbackground during the contact period, see PeterColenbrander, "External Exchange and the Zulu Kingdom,"Bi11 Guest and John M. Sellers (eds.), Enterpriseand Exploitation in a Victorian Colony (Pietermaritzburg:University of Natal Press, 1985), pp. 99-119.

15. Natal Mercury. Durban (11 December, 1957).16. Elizabeth Par-is Watt, Febana (London: Peter Davies,

1962).

21

17. See his letter, "The Zulus," Leadership. Cape Town,Vol. 5, No. 6 (1986), pp. 91-94.

18. J. B. Peires (ed. ) , Be-fore and After Shaka: Papers inNquni History (Grahamstown: Institute o-f Social andEconomic Research, 1981). See also Glyn Hewson, Shaka'sKingship and the Rise o-f the Zulu State (1795-1828) ,M. A. dissertation in History (unpublished), Universityo-f Wisconsin, 1970.

19. See Brian Roberts, The Zulu Kings (London: HamishHamilton, 1974), pp. 217-220.

20. See Louis du Buisson, "The Maligned Monarchs,"Leadership. Cape Town, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1986), pp. 97-100.Morris' letter is a riposte to this. See also Du Buisson,"Heroes or Villains o-f Shaka's Time?," Sunday TimesMagazine. Johannesburg (26 October, 1986) and "An OpenLetter to Bill Faure," Style. Johannesburg (February,1987), which detail the -factual inaccuracies o-f SABC-TV'sShaka Zulu serial point -for point. See also KaiserNgwenya, "Whose Shaka is This?," Drum. Johannesburg(January, 1987), which laughs the serial's authenticityout of court.

21. "Call to Correct Shaka's Image," The Star, Johannesburg(29 September, 1986) and see "Historian Agrees thatShaka Should be Biven more Credit" (30 September, 1986).

22. C. R. Maclean, Loss of the Brig yMarv'. The NauticalMagazine, London (February, 1855), pp. 64—5.

23. C. R. Maclean, copy o-f his letter to The Times (3 August,approx. 1872), KC Collection.